Chapter 8
CONNIE KNEW IT was going to seem a little obvious, but he went out to the Crossing the next three days. His first excuse was he had to pick up that backpack he’d hidden when he went to find Sierra, then he wanted to check on her, maybe give the dogs a little workout so they’d be less restless. Then he said he’d just spend time with her since she couldn’t go anywhere. The first day she was down—feeling bad about what her injury meant for other people. Byron, who she couldn’t help at the diner; Sully, who she couldn’t help at the Crossing; the dogs, who were being neglected by her. The next day she felt better, the swelling was down and after talking with Byron, she was cheerier. With summer so close, school would be out soon and he would have a surplus of waitresses and could cover the mornings. The third day, the campground wasn’t very populated and she was feeling better about taking a rest.
“Don’t you have to work?” she asked him.
“I’ve worked two days this week so far and was off one. I just took a couple of hours to come out and check on you,” he said. “It’s personal time.” And he was there every day to see how things were going. If he had a lot of time, he helped out at the store and grounds. If he didn’t, he spent an hour or so visiting and then left.
After a week had passed he drove her into town to see her doctor. The doctor told her she could drive as long as she didn’t put all her weight on that ankle. That cheered her up considerably.
“You don’t have to keep coming out here to check on me,” she told him.
“I check on Sully a lot anyway,” he said.
“Sully needs checking on?” she asked.
“No more than you,” he said. “If you don’t want to be friends, say so. I’ll make sure to only talk to Sully and the dogs.”
She looked at him with a crooked smile. “Friends?”
“We barely know each other, but if you want to consider something more than friends, we can keep that in mind. For later.”
“Ha,” she laughed. “You’re playing me!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
What he was doing was moving really, really slowly so he wouldn’t find himself falling for her and then ending up in the same bucket of shit like he had with Alyssa.
Since Sierra was getting around pretty well, he went to the Crossing a couple of times to find she wasn’t even there. She’d been running some errands, Sully said. She’d gone to Cal’s to check out the barn and to Leadville to poke around.
But when she was there, they’d stake out a piece of sunshine and talk for an hour or so. She asked him when he decided to become a fireman.
“That’s a little murky,” he said. “I wanted to be a firefighter since I was about four, but I also wanted to be a cowboy, an astronaut and a hobo.”
“Hobo?” she asked with an incredulous laugh.
“You know, just a backpack and the open road. But I was a very scrawny kid. I just didn’t grow for a long time and I got sick a lot—winter colds and stuff. I got teased a lot, picked on a lot. My dad was the worst—he picked on everybody. So, I wanted to be someone big and strong and someone everyone looked up to.”
“And here you are,” she said. “Everybody loves Connie.”
“Nah,” he said.
“Oh, they do, but never mind that. So, you were scrawny and picked on and then...?”
“Then finally I grew. Not a moment too soon, that’s for sure. But I hit fifteen and bam! Instant hormones. My mother said I grew six inches in one year and I don’t know about that, but my feet were awful big. I played sports, worked out a lot, and in my senior year I thought, yeah—I think I’ll be a firefighter. But you can’t do that at seventeen and it takes a lot of preparation. I worked all over the place, mostly physical jobs—I worked as a furniture mover, a trucker, ranch hand, you name it. I took a few college courses. Rafe and I did almost everything together—we got jobs together, went to school together, applied to the fire department together. And that’s it, really. The history of Connie Boyle.”
“That’s a work history. What about the other stuff. Did you go to prom?”
“Yeah, I went to prom. I was a football player, it was practically the law. Didn’t you?”
She shook her head. “My situation was a little different than yours. But let’s get back to you. How are things with you and your dad now?”
That one made him a little uncomfortable. He looked away for a moment. Then he met her eyes. “My dad was a dick. He was mean to my mother and me. My mom divorced him when I was six and even as a little kid, I was not sorry to see him go, even though my mom cried all the time for months. Then she did something I will never understand. She married another dick. Another mean, snotty, verbally abusive asshole. Why would she do that? She said I’d understand someday but I do not understand and hope I never do.”
“Sadly, I get it. People do it all the time. Not on purpose. I don’t know why we do it, but some of us are magnets to mean assholes. Luckily for you, when women are picking out their husband they should look at how that guy treats his mother, not how he was treated by his father. But I guess at some point all family relationships matter.”
“Did you have good family relationships?” he asked her.
“I did, actually. But there were...extenuating circumstances. Like the fact that my dad has struggled with mental illness his whole adult life. That’s a little hard to work around.”
“I guess so,” he said emphatically. “Wanna go out to dinner? Maybe Colorado Springs?”
“No,” she said, laughing.
“Too soon?”
“Way,” she said.
“Okay. Wanna go down by the lake?”
“Okay,” she said, starting to get up.
“Stay put,” he said. “I’m going to get a beer—I’m not working tonight. You want something?”
“Diet Coke?”
“You got it.”
He went inside and bought a beer and a Diet Coke. He argued a little with Sully about paying for it since it was for Sierra, but in the end Sully grudgingly took his money. He put the beer in one pocket, the Coke in the other, went back outside and scooped her up off her chair and carried her to the picnic table by the lake. She squealed and got the dogs barking and running circles around them.
“What are you doing?” she laughed.
“You like it when I carry you. And then you’re really nice to me.”
“I’m always nice to you!”
“You’re nicer when I carry you. I have a devious plan. I’m going to be nice and friendly and you’re going to like me.”
“I already like you, Connie.”
“A lot,” he said. “You’re going to like me a lot.”
“Sully warned me to look out for the firefighters. They’re either real gentlemen with the women or they’re dogs.”
He stopped walking for a moment. He couldn’t help that a little scowl showed up on his face. “He’s right. And I know who’s who.”
* * *
Sierra knew Connie wasn’t a dog. Not only did he have a fan club around Timberlake and the Crossing, she could tell by his behavior. And while she hated to admit it to herself and absolutely wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, she was enjoying his attention. She was not grateful for the sprained ankle, but one of the perks was Connie. It might’ve taken months for them to get friendly much less have these cozy talks.
Since she was able to drive, she met Moody for coffee at the diner. She was getting to know him better. The personal side of his story made him more real to her. She asked him if he still struggled with wanting a drink.
“While I was in rehab thirty years ago, my wife moved out of our house. I agreed with her decision—our marriage was a troubled mess. I was a drunk and she was a harpy. We had a lot of work to do. Oh, she came to family week at rehab—she was willing to do the work but I’d worn her out and we decided it was best if she moved out for a while. So she did. When I knew she was gone I called a sober friend and asked him to go to the house and get rid of all the liquor before I went home because I felt so vulnerable without my harpy codependent wife to watch my every move. I told him I had bottles stashed everywhere. I told him to please get rid of all of it. When I went home, he had. And I spent the entire night tearing the house apart looking for the secret bottles he might’ve missed. Not so I could drink, but because it made me afraid, having them lurking there. I ransacked the house to find them and get rid of them. I never did find one.” He shook his head. “I was at a lot of meetings on that. But you know why? Really, why? Because no one is conscious of the absence or presence of alcohol the way alcoholics are. We count people’s drinks. We wonder how anyone can leave half a drink on the table. Other people don’t worry about it. Other people can be done and walk away.”
“That hypervigilance is very tiring,” she said. “I’m working on minding my own damn business. I don’t want to wonder when someone looks at me if they know.”
“Well, sometimes they do know. Or guess. What other people think of me is none of my business. Some people guard their anonymity like it’s a precious jewel that will blow up if they breech it while others go on talk shows with it. What you do with yours is up to you. Just don’t handle anybody else’s.”
“Course not,” she said. “When do I start to feel normal?” she asked.
“When did you last feel normal?”
She had never felt normal in her entire life. She bit her lower lip. “This could be problematic,” she said.
“Do you know what prayer I believe God hears the most? The very most?” Moody asked. “‘Dear God, why can’t I be like everyone else?’”
“Do you feel normal?”
He didn’t answer right away and remained silent while their coffee was refilled. Moody took a minute to make adjustments with cream and sugar. He stared at his cup a minute. “There have been days I’ve felt like the job I have ahead for the day is equal to emptying the ocean of water using a fork. And on stranger days I thought everything was right with the world and God was in his heaven. What if this is the new normal?”
“What if?” she echoed. “What’s your most frequent prayer? To not drink?”
“Nah. I’m not going to drink, but I’m vigilant lest I forget. My favorite prayer is, ‘Dear God. I’ll pedal if You’ll steer.’”
“I like that,” she said. “I like that very much.”
“It’s yours. It wasn’t copyrighted.”
Two weeks passed with Sierra on crutches, her ankle feeling better all the time, the bruising going from purple to a yellowish blue with a hint of green. She was diligent about keeping it elevated as much as possible, staying on her crutches when walking, but she was in only the slightest discomfort—unless she accidentally put weight on it.
Sierra decided to look around a Colorado Springs mall since she had the time. She’d been to the city before when she went to a rock climbing gym but that was the extent of her exploration. She even located a meeting over there and if there was time, she might attend after shopping. But what she was really interested in was spending a couple of hours checking out the clothing stores, the only bookstore in the mall and maybe doing a little people watching.
It had been a long time since she’d been in a department store. She looked through some clothes and actually bought a pair of shorts, but that’s where she stopped because trying them on had been more trouble than it was worth. She spent an hour in the bookstore, which was heaven. She bought a copy of Wuthering Heights because she was weak—it was one of her staple reads and it didn’t feel right not having it with her. As almost an afterthought, she bought something for Cal. Well, for Cal and Maggie—a little unisex onesie that said Auntie’s Favorite on it. Sedona’s kids would never know! And that was about all she could really carry while on crutches. In fact, mall walking on crutches was about all the exercise she could take and she headed in the direction of the exit.
And then she saw him. Was it him? She was looking at a man’s back, but it sure looked like him—the devil Derek Cox, the man who had changed her life in every way. It was the same thick brown hair, curling at the collar of his powder blue shirt. The same type of shirt he wore a lot because it emphasized his physique, which was impressive. It was tight fitting, the sleeves too tight at the biceps...
That was a year ago, her mind argued. And aren’t there lots of shirts like that? Don’t a lot of men wear them because they love their muscles? She’d thought about that every time she saw that—couldn’t they find a slightly larger shirt with sleeves that didn’t pinch? Of course they could.
That belt looked like his belt—she was a little too familiar with that belt. The shoes, she’d been with him when he bought them—Tommy Bahama—just ordinary loafers but they cost a fortune. She barely knew him then. It was the day of their one and only official date and she’d been impressed. How many people could have that hair, that shirt, that belt, those shoes?
The man was with a woman. A girl, really. His hand was gently guiding her at the small of her back and she had long blond hair.
I had long blond hair then, Sierra remembered.
The girl was laughing, happy to be with him. Would she be happy tomorrow?
Sierra worked those crutches hard, following him because as much as she didn’t want him to know she was there, she needed to know if it was really him. She moved over to the side of the mall walkway, closer to the storefronts in case she had to dart inside to avoid him. She tried to stay a little bit out of sight.
That gait, the way he walked—it had to be him. His heels lifted a little more than necessary with each step—the swagger. His confidence showed in his walk. He was headed for the same exit she would use, but she followed anyway. She kept what she thought was a safe distance—he didn’t know she was in Colorado. And why would he be looking for her at this late date?
The man reached the exit door and he turned toward his companion. Derek, the bastard, didn’t have a nose that big! Did he? She was frozen. Her eyes were probably huge. She didn’t know if it was him or not.
He turned to look over his shoulder, typical. She remembered thinking that was odd about him, always looking behind himself like that, careful to see if anyone was following him, looking at him, looking for him. She thought it was odd until he committed a crime, then she got it.
Before she could study the face more closely, she turned her face away, looking down, her brown hair making a canopy over her profile, concealing her. She waited a few long seconds. She slowly turned, peeking through the strands of her hair.
Gone.
She had to wait a bit before she could dare follow. Maybe it was him. Just in case it was him, he must not see her. He would come right to her, smiling as though they were friends, long-lost friends. He would talk fast, smile broadly, maneuver her away from help or escape, mesmerize her and manipulate her, try to make her think he’s okay, not just okay but good for her. By the time she got to the exit doors, there was no sign of them. She watched the parking lot from inside the glass doors. She didn’t recognize any people or vehicles.
“Maybe I’ve just lost my mind,” she said to herself.
That’s when she realized she’d dropped her packages somewhere. They were gone. She went back the way she’d come—no sign of them. A mall security guard directed her to the lost and found. There were no packages turned in, of course, but they took her name and cell number.
She decided to leave. She sat in the pumpkin for a while, devastated over the loss of a book, a pair of shorts and a onesie. Her throat burned.
Or maybe it was over almost seeing the most dangerous man she’d ever known...
* * *
It was the first thaw of spring in Michigan. It was fifty-five degrees that afternoon and she went to her favorite pub to enjoy drinks on the patio with her peeps. The new guy picked her out immediately and they were together all evening. He was so handsome, all the girls were interested, but he chose her. She wouldn’t let him come home with her but she did give him her number and she was pathetically thrilled when he called her the very next morning. He showed up at her office building where she worked in accounting for an independent insurance carrier. Her boss was annoyed but then her boss, a middle-aged woman with a stick up her butt, was never happy anyway. Derek wanted to know if he could take her to lunch. Of course he could!
It was much later that she wondered how he had found her. Picked her out like that. Had she told him where she worked? She must have. How else could he have found her? She brushed off the curiosity because who knew what she’d tell someone when she’d been a little lit up with mojitos. Mojitos, a spring drink.
He met her after work. He got sulky when she wouldn’t let him spend the night so she tried to make it up to him by being extra sweet and it worked—he went back into Prince Charming mode. Called and texted all the time.
He was fascinating—he dropped out of law school to enlist. Since one of her brothers was a lawyer and the other a captain in the Army, they had something to talk about. He told her how he went to Afghanistan and ended up being trained in special ops as an undercover officer. When he got out of the military, he worked under civilian contract as a...well...the civilian version of a spy, flying all over the world for special projects with a team of specialists. He had grown up in an interesting family—his father was a race car driver. Not one of the famous ones, but he’d made a good living and the family followed races all over. His mother sang backup in a country band—a pretty famous one. His grandfather, a chemist, actually invented the pregnancy test. He had trained malamutes for a while—bomb-sniffing malamutes.
At first she teased him about being Forrest Gump. Then she began to wonder how a guy barely thirty-five had time to accomplish all that. Then she stopped believing him. But it seemed like the other people in her crowd ate it up.
From that first night, he was never far away. He called, he dropped by her office, he took her to lunch, he took her out in the evening. It wasn’t long before he got into her panties and...it was awful. He had trouble getting and maintaining an erection and he grew angrier and angrier until she told him to leave. He refused and they fought until, miraculously, it rose. Then he was on a mission—he wanted to do it every which way. He wasn’t ejaculating. It wasn’t until she began to say enough is enough and pushed at him that he finally had success.
Then he wouldn’t leave. He left her to lie there beside him, wondering what the hell had happened. In the morning she kicked him out so she could get ready for work and decided she wasn’t going to be seeing him again.
Of course he pursued her immediately, so she told him over the phone. She wasn’t interested in a relationship, especially one that included fighting. He twisted that to make it sound like a guy had a little trouble and wasn’t a stud on their first night together and that was it? “No,” she insisted. “I don’t want a relationship right now, especially one with fighting.” She wanted space; no more surprise visits, no more calls, no more texting. She wanted him to move on. She stopped answering calls and texts but he was waiting in parking lots and outside work and he was everywhere. She told some of her friends he wouldn’t leave her alone, so he stood back six feet, put his palms up, smiled eerily and didn’t exactly do anything, but he was creepy and frightening. He always knew where she was. She’d make plans to go to a different bar or club and guess who would show up? She’d walk around a corner and he was there. A few times she actually bumped into him, splat!
One of her friends said she’d had a creep like that once and you had to be firm and direct. She was as clear as she could be when she said, “Go away and leave me alone! I don’t want to date you or anything!”
So he worked the crowd she hung out with, she was always aware of him and she started needing an escort home. She went to the police to talk to someone about him. He was stalking her; she feared he meant her harm.
He didn’t have a record. “Stay out of bars,” the officer told her.
She asked if she could have a restraining order.
“Has he done anything?” the officer asked.
“Besides bother me constantly, watch me, follow me, creep me out? Does he have to do something to hurt me?”
“Yes, or at least threaten you,” the officer said. “Ignore him. Call the police if he does anything harmful or threatening.”
He began to ingratiate himself to other people in the bars, making them laugh, doing favors, buying drinks, giving them things—he had everything, money, drugs, whatever. People thought he was a little strange but harmless.
She didn’t know why he wanted her. She thought maybe he only wanted to hurt her. If she didn’t go to her usual haunts, he would still find her wherever she went, try to talk to her, ask her if she wanted a ride, could he take her out for a decent dinner. “I’m a little concerned about you, Sierra,” he said. “You’re living dangerously.”
That’s when she became stupider. When she should have stayed away from alcohol to remain vigilant and safe, for some reason she just drank more. But she tried to stay around people. She had a roommate, Bobbie Jo, but they weren’t really friends, just two women who needed a roommate to share costs. They got along fine, though Bobbie Jo wasn’t around much, off doing her own thing. She had a boyfriend and they were either in bed together or out or at his place.
One night she had a little too much to drink. Not exactly a red-letter day—that happened to her now and then. That night she wasn’t sure what had done it—it seemed like it had only been a glass or maybe a glass and a half of wine but man, she was having trouble staying on her feet. Next thing she knew, she was in the car, her car, a six-year-old Honda sedan. And she was dizzy and felt sick. Her head was spinning, her stomach flipping, her vision blurred.
And the car was moving. She struggled to focus, to see what was happening and, oh God, it was him! Driving her car. Derek was laughing and talking to her and telling her they were going to have some fun. He was speeding, she thought. She didn’t know why they were in her car. He was turning to look at her while he was driving, saying things that made no sense, like “It’s your turn now,” and “Let’s see if you can get out of this one.”
She couldn’t understand what was happening. There was a thump and the car skidded to a stop. He got out of the car, got back in and just started driving again. She knew something bad had happened. “You hit something. Did you hit something?” she asked. And he laughed and said, “No, you hit something. Someone. But don’t worry—he won’t last long.”
She started to scream. His hand came out and struck her in the face so hard her neck snapped and everything went black. She was just coming to again when he pulled her car into the small detached garage beside the sixty-year-old two-bedroom house she shared with Bobbie Jo. And when she struggled against her seat belt she saw that her roommate’s car was gone...and Derek was pulling down the garage door. She was trapped. With a madman.
“You’ll never forget me now,” he said.
* * *
She couldn’t keep doing this.
Most of the way back to Timberlake, she tried out Moody’s prayer, promising to pedal if God would steer. Seeping through the murky mess of her brain, through the fear and paranoia, she found herself driving toward Cal. It was approaching dinnertime and she realized Maggie was in Denver. She made a deal with herself—if Cal wasn’t home or if there were people around, she would take that as a sign that she shouldn’t talk to him about this.
But if he was alone, she would tell him now. She had run from Michigan to get away from Derek, she had run from Iowa when she thought she saw him near where she was living. Where was she going to run next if that really was him in Colorado Springs? She had to find a better plan. She had to tell someone.
She pulled up to the barn and saw that only Cal’s truck was parked outside. The front door of the barn stood open and she could hear the Shop-Vac at work. She sat in the pumpkin for a little while, contemplating. If it was Derek Cox in Colorado Springs, she was at risk and would need help. If there was anything she’d learned in the last ten months it was that it was dangerous to try to handle serious problems alone. There was no one she trusted more than Cal.
He saw her standing in the doorway and shut off the vacuum cleaner.
“Hey, you’re getting around pretty well there,” he said, smiling.
“I have to talk to you about something. Something very serious. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I think. Telling you this.”
“Sit down, relax, just say whatever you have to say. You know I’m on your side.”
“I know. Back in Michigan, back before I went home to the farm in Iowa, I ran into some trouble. And no one could help me.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “Something to drink?”
“Arsenic?”
He chuckled and went to the refrigerator, getting two sodas for them. “Sit,” he said. “Take your time.”
“I have to get home to Molly soon...”
“Just do it, Sierra. Tell me what you came to tell me. I think you know you can trust me.”
She toyed with the tab on the can, taking a couple of deep breaths. “It might seem impossible to believe.”
“Come on now, Sierra. You’re stalling.”
She told him everything, from the first time Derek targeted her, hit on her, to the night that ended in her garage. Her brother’s face grew pale, then crimson. She thought his hand was shaking as he lifted his soda can to his lips. His lawyer’s poker face wasn’t working so well as he listened to her.
“What I couldn’t make sense of at the time... I’d been at a bar. A bar I went to sometimes, where I knew people. I wasn’t with anyone, but the bartender and waitress knew me. He must have drugged me, slipped something in my glass of wine. Then took my keys and got behind the wheel of my car. I couldn’t focus, I was sick. Believe it or not, that didn’t happen to me a lot. I didn’t get sick, didn’t have blackouts, I just got really stupid, unsteady, made bad choices and had a terrible hangover the next day. This was different. He must have drugged me.”
“He left you in the garage?”
She looked down at the table where they sat. “After he beat me and raped me,” she said quietly. She couldn’t look at her brother. She hated that she had shame when she hadn’t done anything wrong. “He left me there, walked out, closed the garage door and just walked away. I never saw him again. Well, I thought I saw him a number of times but I’m not sure if it’s a mirage made up of my fear or if he really found me.”
“What did you do that night?”
“Just what you’re not supposed to do—I showered. I tried to treat the cuts and bruises. But then I realized what he’d done and went to a clinic. They did a rape kit but I wouldn’t talk to the police. They took some pictures. I know I should have gone to the police but I was just too afraid. Of him. I’d been to the police before—they weren’t helpful. I’d asked them for a restraining order...”
“They couldn’t give you a restraining order because he annoyed you or scared you—there had to be a crime or a threat, an obvious threat.”
“The clinic said they’d be keeping that rape kit for a while, gave me the name of some counselors, a crisis center. They gave me some phone numbers, did some cultures and blood panel, wrote me a prescription for a morning after pill, which I wasn’t going to need—I was on birth control. But they said I could call in with my patient number and get the test results and, if needed, get treated for any sexually transmitted disease.”
“What did you do?”
“I went home. I decided I had to get out of town. I was all done there. I thought at the very least he’d drug me, beat me and rape me again. I was afraid he’d kill me or something. And I was afraid he’d hit someone out on the road—my memory was spotty but I remember something happened and I don’t know where we were. Seems like we weren’t in the neighborhood. I don’t think we were on the highway. There was a dent and a really long scrape in the fender. I thought about checking with the police to find out if anything happened. Instead, I packed a duffel, drove to the airport, to long-term parking, and left the car. I took a bus to Iowa. I owed money on that car and I abandoned it. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone and I turned off the phone, afraid of who might call me.”
“Did you tell anyone about Iowa? Does he know about our parents? And that they’re in Iowa?” Cal asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t talk about our parents. Not a lot to brag about there, huh? Once I told my roommate I wanted to go to California.” She smiled sheepishly. “I did want to. And here I am.”
* * *
Sierra called Sully to say she had stopped to see Cal, then stayed about an hour. She finished her story and her cola and left to see about her dog before it got much later. Sully was holding dinner to have with her. Letting her leave, letting her crutch her way out into the dusk was hard for Cal—she seemed so small, so alone. He held her for a long time before she pried herself away.
He had asked her if the event of thinking she saw this dangerous man from her past made her want to drink and she had said, “Just the opposite. That was another life and I have no desire to go back. But I think I will go to a meeting tomorrow morning. It never hurts and it usually reaffirms everything I know to be real.”
He was so proud of her. Scared for her.
“But thinking I saw him made me realize, what if it was him? If not now, someday? I could disappear for real without anyone knowing the details. I had to tell you. I had to tell someone.”
After she left he went for a beer for himself—boy, did he need it.
Cal wasn’t sure if Sierra had ever paid any attention to it or not, but he had been one of the hottest criminal defense attorneys in Michigan. He was doing a little lawyering here in Colorado, but nothing too high profile. He was still licensed to practice in Michigan if it came to that, if she needed a defense. He wouldn’t defend her, of course. But he knew the best of the best and he could always sit second chair.
Meanwhile, he could get information. Sierra wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but it probably wouldn’t hurt. Not only was his old detective available by phone, he was no slouch when it came to investigation. He could find out if there was an accident, any police investigation, if this Derek Cox had any kind of criminal record, if he was wanted for anything. He could find out if anyone was looking for him. Or for Sierra. He didn’t even have to ask her the make, model and license number of that Honda she’d abandoned—he could find it. If anything came up, if she needed him, he would be ready.
And then there was the issue—if there had been a broken law, they would have to face it or worry about the consequences of obstruction.
She told him that she got a job with the county sorting through refuse in the recycle plant in Iowa. She borrowed Mom’s truck to go to work and stopped for groceries or whatever they needed on the way home. After a couple of months, maybe three, she came home from work and her mother told her some man had come around asking about her, asking if she was there. Marissa, who had been dodging “official looking” people her entire life to keep her schizophrenic husband safe, had said, “She’s in Michigan, isn’t she? I don’t know when we last saw her.”
“Good old Marissa,” Sierra had laughed when she told Cal. “Luckily my benefits with the county kicked in so I looked at rehab, found one facility in Des Moines that would take my insurance.”
She didn’t go into rehab to get sober, she went to hide out. One thing she knew, having had so many friends pass that way, everyone made a list of who they’d be willing to talk to and no one else could get through. No information was given out about patients except to police officers with warrants. So, she’d talk to Marissa only, she said. And she’d ask if anyone had been looking for her. Then, when the heat was off, maybe she would go to California. The state, not the brother. Funny how things worked out. Cal wanted her and she thought she was as safe with him as anywhere.
She’d been pretty sure she’d find out in rehab that she wasn’t a real alcoholic, but just an active young woman who liked to party. “Imagine my surprise,” she said to Cal, “when I found out I’m a drunk and the choices for me are booze or death. I didn’t even drink every day! I thought real alcoholics were much more ambitious.”
“You must have done some heavy drinking,” he suggested.
“Oh, there were times,” she said. “But guess what else I learned? From a woman in rehab who had been stalked. There might’ve been a device in my phone to track me. That might’ve been how Derek could always find me. I got rid of the old phone, so I’ll never be able to find out, but it would make sense. To this day I don’t know if he left me on the floor of my garage and walked away, done with me, or if he followed me to Iowa. Then to Colorado. Was that him who talked to Marissa? Or was that some law enforcement person because my car was in an accident?”
“I’ll look into it,” Cal told her. “I’ll find out if there was an accident and I won’t have to mention your name to do it. But that might fall into the category of stuff you’d rather not know. It could be a very difficult situation.”
“Cal, I’d feel terrible if something happened, but I didn’t do it. I know I didn’t do it. He reminded me the whole time he was assaulting me that there was no proof he’d even driven my car. I might’ve been drugged, but I heard that. It was his intention from the start, if anything happened, I would be the guilty one.”
“You’re not afraid of jail?” he asked. “You didn’t hide out in rehab because you’re afraid of possible jail?”
She looked at him, her eyes so large and liquid. “Wasn’t I clear? I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not afraid of going to jail. I’m afraid of him. There’s just one thing that haunts me. Why? Why would he do that?”
As Cal remembered that, he took several swallows of his beer. But it didn’t help. He leaned his elbows on his knees, gripped the beer in two hands, looked at the floor and wept. His baby sister, his beautiful baby sister, tied with a belt, brutally raped and beaten.
Terrified.
“Talk about scared straight,” she had said.